Do YOU know where your Money is?
Good, beautiful day everyone! Thanks for stopping by. Coach Sandra here. In this world of money, I’ve been a financial advisor since 1982, but more importantly, I’ve had lived experience with money all my life – that’s decades! and so have you!
Do YOU know where your money is? Yes, you read that right! What did you learn as a child, in your family, about money? For me, I learned that it’s scarce and hard to come by, so be VERY careful with it. At the same time, I was told that there’s always more money. I grew up very CONFLICTED. How about you?
As I review my early years, I was raised with a healthy awareness. We received a small allowance every week in high school. Didn’t need one in grade school because I grew up on the farm and attended the same one-room country school as my Dad!
In high school, I received $1.00 a week (Yes, that’s how old I am!). I was an avid reader and I could buy a book every six weeks for $1.50, from a book club. I wanted those books badly enough to budget without even thinking it was a punishment. It was a planning tool to get what I wanted, a “means to an end”.
I rode an hour to high school, after a ten minute walk to catch the school bus at the end of our road (up hill both ways, of course, with snow up to my waist!). The bus stopped in Wooler, ON to have other students join us for the remainder of the trip to Brighton High. There was a little general store in Wooler with scooped ice cream. Every afternoon on the way home, I’d get off that bus and treat myself to a 5 cent ice cream cone and used another 5 cents every day, to get milk to go with my packed lunch. That’s how I learned to understand where my money was.
Those precious early years experiencing money has affected all of my life. Conflicted is what I came to struggle with. You have to ‘work hard to make a living and give freely of your God-given gifts’. I bought into that idea big time and eventually, decades later, finally recognized how that is a big misunderstanding. To live abundantly, it is important to make an abundant living, doing what you love, doing what you’d do for free, because it brings me peace, joy and a sense of achievement. Even if you need to maintain a traditional job/career, you can always do a side hustle that brings you joy and may one day blossom into a full-time business. The important thing is the joy. It’s never too late.
On the other hand, I look back and remember how I went into sales ideas as a young child. I would walk the country roads to all my neighbours to sell them Regal Greeting Cards. Other times it was jewellery and still other times it was candy powder, like Lik-m-Aid, that tasted like Kool-Aid crystals. There were very few jobs to be had in the country, and I was determined to make a little of my own money.
Perhaps moving into a career in financial services was a simple step. Commission sales however, was a really difficult step, but the world of finances never scared me. As a young wife and mother, I was able to assess and analyze our finances, always aware of where the money was going. When I would become off track, it was a short time of tracking every cent to get me back on track. In Germany, where the currency was a new experience, I literally chose the amount in Canadian dollars that I generally spent on groceries, converted it, then put THAT amount in an envelope for groceries. I was able to stay on budget. For entertainment and travel, same thing, save my decided amount in an envelope. And right from the first day of marriage, even on very low wages, we always put a $100.00 every month, into a savings account for emergencies and possibilities. When other families went to restaurants and day trips every week, spending so much, we went maybe once a month or every six weeks. The comments in our friends’ group was: “Oh, you Valks’, you always have money!” It certainly wasn’t by accident!
Budgeting and financial planning is your first step to independence, responsibility and FREEDOM.
UNDERSTAND AND KNOW where your money is. It’s a CHOICE!
What are your memories of money as a child?
You can do it. I can help.
